Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

When he finally opened his eyes, the old man was shaking with silent mirth. His blue eyes sparkled mischievously as he poured the last of the gin into the misshapen tin cups.

"Enough of that little exercise," he said warmly. "Now have a drink with me. Get all that foolishness out of your head. Relax a little, and then, my best beloved, have a good cry. Ay, ma-mushka , you need to weep, not to die, to weep if it takes you all night. Well, what are you waiting for? Weep! Yobtvuyumat, I said weep!"

"Knock it off," said Yonatan lifelessly, his head thrust forward crosswise in a movement that resembled one of his father Yolek's efforts to hear. "Why don't you just drop it. I don't know what you want from me. I'm not going to any Petra. I'm not one of that crowd."

"Bravo! Molodets! Stakhanov! So you're just looking for Udi, eh? It's Udi who wants to go to Petra. You just happen to be down here and while away you are spending your nights shtupping Michal. Or was it Rafa'ella? Or little Yvonne? No difference there. As long as you get to the honeypot, bozhe moy, and have a stick to stir it with. Excellent! To live! To fuck and to live! To weep and to live! Death is filthy. Feh! Dirty! And it hurts too! Khhhhhhhrrrr!"

"Thanks. I've already got the idea. Thanks for the drink, and all the rest of it. Just let me go now," said Yonatan with as much firmness as he could muster. "I've really got to get going."

"All right, malchik, let's go."

"What?"

"You wanted to go, didn't you? Come on, then. We'll go harness Burlak and hit the road. Go to Petra. What do I care? Every man's his own master. When it comes to his own life, every idiot is as free as a king. Go right ahead. Die and enjoy it. Just take that, nu, that jerrycan over there, so we can fill it up with cold water for you. It holds a lot more than that puny flask of yours. Here, we'll tie it nice and neat to your back to make sure you don't die thirsty. What do they call you, son? By now they were walking out the door.

"I am… Azariah."

"Liar!"

"Sasha?"

"Go on. Lie all you want."

"You won't tell on me, will you?"

"You poor nincompoop! Shame on you! Bah! To die is a human prerogative! It's in the constitution! It's in the bill of rights! It's written in stone. Who am I, Stalin? Ay, mama. 'You promith not to tell on me? Naughty-naughty!' " The last in a high-pitched voice, mimicking that of a whining child. "Although if I were your father I'd beat the daylights out of you. Your behind would be as red and purple as a baboon's. Now allow me to introduce you. This beautiful devil here is Burlak. A sight for sore eyes, no?"

It was a broken-down jalopy of a jeep, one headlight discolored like a blackened eye and the other shattered. The front windshield was missing from a frame gone to rust. A woolen army blanket had been spread over the filthy stuffing that spilled from the tattered seats. In the back were some jerrycans of water and gasoline, a few red-and-white-striped surveyor's poles, a theodolite, some greasy ropes, a few rags, a box of K-rations, several samples of quartz and bitumen, and the torn remains of old newspapers. Matzos on the floorboards crunched beneath Yonatan's feet.

"My dearly beloved Burlak." The old man laughed, showing his fine white teeth. "Churchill himself once rode him into Venice, but now he's all ours."

The engine barked, yelped, hemmed and hawed, until suddenly the jeep took off, pitching Yonatan forward. The old man put it through a few twists and turns and ran over an empty oil can before reaching the main road. He drove with a Cossack spirit, pumping the gas pedal on curves and occasionally kicking the brakes, though rarely bothering with the clutch. Under his breath he hummed a broad Russian melody.

Where is he taking me? Straight to the police? Why do I keep attracting such crackpots? My father. My mother. Trotsky. Azariah. Rimona. Myself. From no more than a pace-and-a-half, what a dunce! How can you miss a bull from a pace-and-a-half? I could have killed him with my eyes closed. He must have missed on purpose because death stinks. Crawl and live! Suffer and live! But for what? At least I didn't crack. Didn't even tell him my name. Although maybe he's just mad enough to have guessed that too. In a minute he'll probably roll this jeep over and kill us both. What time is it? It's getting dark. By sunrise tomorrow I'll be dead anyway. My last night, this one. And a good thing too. Khhhhrrr!…Even a broken watch is right twice a day. And there I'm being waited for. Not forever, though. But I'm coming.

"Do you have the time?"

"Son," said Tlallim, "you've got plenty of time. The Atallah will be more than happy to wait. It so happens I was in Petra myself eight years ago. It's just another ruin. A pile of stones. Like all ruins. No Peterburg, Petra. Just one big hole."

"How come they didn't do you in?"

"Silly boy!" laughed the old man. "The Atallah don't take me for a Jew at all. And by now I'm really not one. I'm sort of a, nu, a holy man to them, a dervish, yurodivy. And that's what I am around here too. You just ask about Sasha, how he rode to Petra on a camel like Father Abraham, with the Atallah wining and dining him all the way and their daughters dancing for his delight. I, O dearly beloved, am not a Jew any longer. I'm not even a man. I'm the Devil's own, a desert rat. Of life he could not get his fill. Women he adored. Vodka he did swill. The reprobates to trap him sought, the fools to lay him low. But he never said die. Nikagda! Come on now, zolotoy mine, please don't go to hell. Why don't the two of us take off and have a blast?"

"Sorry," said Yonatan, "Drop me at Bir-Meliha, and forget you ever met me, please. I don't owe anybody any explanation. My life's my own."

"A philosopher!" crowed the old man with the glee of a mind-reader who has just had an astonishing prediction come true and is taking a bow before an audience of unseen admirers. "Your life is your own! Original! Profound! Whose did you think it was, mine? The Devil's? Of course it's your own, krasavits. Ay, mama, it's a crime what those reprobates must have done to make you look the way you do. The bastards! Damn their souls! Well, go to hell then. Only take my advice. Don't spend the night. Come back to Sasha. Steal across the border if you must and have a peek at Transjordan. No harm is likely to come of it. Just don't go beyond their road. And then as soon as you reach it, turn around and come straight back. Lovely, eh? Molodets! And remember the name — Tlallim! Easy! Sasha! Come back to my royal palace tonight and stay for as long as you like, no questions asked — a day, a week, two years — whatever it takes for you to think the bastards have cried their hearts out long enough to have learned to treat you better. All the while I'll be offering you olives, figs, and dates, a bed of royal purple, and plenty of booze to keep you warm. Mind you, I'm a vegetarian by conviction. A vegetarian cannibal, that is. I'll even give you a face-lift. A brand-new kisser. You're already growing a beard. No one will know who you are. You can team up with me if you'd like and be my deputy surveyor. We'll ride the desert range, and you'll be the king's viceroy. Or if you'd rather not, no problem. You can spend all day long on your ass at my place and at night take your rod and make a beeline for the honeypot. No one in the whole world will know you're staying with me. How about it?"

"Pull over right here," said Yonatan. "This is where I get off."

" Ay, mama! " groaned the old man. "I've been foiled by the Foul Fiend again."

The jeep came to a stop, with an almost tender precision this time. Yonatan climbed into the back and threw his knapsack, blankets, windbreaker, jerrycan, and sleeping bag onto the sand beside the road. Then, clutching his rifle, he jumped down. The old man did not look up. He sat behind the wheel limp as an empty sack, chin down. Only when Yonatan began to disappear against a darkening embankment did he raise his magnificent head and say softly, "Take care, son." All of a sudden, from the depths of his chest to the ends of the desert, he thundered, "Wretch!"